COP17 Durban Platform : an important compromise

The 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol ended in Durban on the morning of Sunday, 11 December 2011 with a success guaranteeing the future of the Kyoto Protocol.

Following the conference, the parties agreed on a set of four texts which consolidate the multilateral system and pave the way for a comprehensive agreement bringing together all states :

A decision of the conference makes provision for a second Kyoto Protocol commitment period to begin on 1 January 2013 for a duration of five years.

The Durban Platform adopted in accordance with this decision sets in train a process to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an outcome with legal force in the framework of the Convention applicable to all its parties. To this end, it creates an ad hoc working group whose work - which is to start before mid-2012 - will have to be completed by 2015 in order [for the legal framework] to take effect as of 2020. The aim of this ambitious process will be to strengthen greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets to limit effectively the rise in our planet’s average temperature. Among other things, it will draw on the next IPCC report and the results of the 2013-2015 review.

The agreement reached in Durban also enables the decisions taken in Cancún to be implemented. In particular, the conference gave the go-ahead to the establishment of the Green Climate Fund, which by 2020 will help raise the $100 billion per year promised by the developed countries to help developing countries in their efforts against climate change and its effects.

France welcomes this agreement. It should make it possible to make the international system for fighting climate change more ambitious. This success is the result of the South African presidency’s wise conduct of the negotiations. France, along with the European Union, will continue to shoulder all her responsibilities and remain the main initiator of proposals against climate change.